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6 Essential Tips to Becoming Professional Drone Photographers

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Drone Photographers

Drones have become ever more accessible to the common consumers’ thanks to their low prices. They unleash new vistas of opportunities for drone photographers and lets them capture photographs in ways that were once deemed as unimaginable. In addition to requiring photographic, flying, and editing skills, safety has to be taken into account while pursuing aerial photography.

These tips, we hope, would go a long way in helping you become professional drone photographers.

Select an appropriate drone as drone photographers

There are tons of different drones available on the market which have been designed to accomplish different tasks. However, all of them are not geared to be used in photography. Some have been engineered particularly for racing and performing stunning aerial maneuvers while others are used to carry out sophisticated surveys. A drone with a top notch camera is a must if you are looking to use your drone for capturing still shots and video footages of high resolution. You can spend a bit extra and get a drone that lets you mount an external camera. You will have access to plenty of advanced features by mounting a digital SLR camera on your drone with a stabilizing gimbal.

Ensure flight safety

Before you become one of the most adept drone photographers, you must be conversant with how to fly a drone. There are stringent rules and regulations in place with regard to flight safety and violating any of them could have you end up behind the bars. For instance, according to the rules forged by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a drone pilot must solicit authorization from the air traffic control to fly in a certain class of airspace. Aerial photography largely banks on the pilot’s skill to control and maneuver the drone in a seamless manner. You should hone your flying skills by practicing to fly in circles and squares and maintaining certain elevations.

Be familiar with your machine’s features

One can easily get over-excited and ignore the true potential of the drone in the whole mayhem that is created while one learns to fly a drone and capture the world from the top. Most of the drones that have been introduced recently are equipped with intelligent and autonomous flight features. However, it remains crucial that you are able to take control of the drone and land safely in case something malfunctions but the entire purpose of smart modes of flight is to assist the pilot in focusing on the photography aspect only. The Follow Me mode is ideal for capturing sports and chase cam shots.

Enhance your aerial photography skills

Once you are able to control and maneuver your drone appropriately, you should begin to focus on capturing aerial photographs. You should pay heed to the fundamental rules of photography and it is mandatory that you should not overlook them. For instance, when it comes to the image composition, it is as important for aerial images as is in the case of ground based ones. You should ensure that you maintain a secure distance from people and buildings and employ the zoom feature if it is supported by your drone’s camera. Take the direction of the light sources into account which would be sun in our case. Similarly, keep into mind when the shadows start falling. Landscape and scenic views are captured the best around sunset or sunrise so you should try out new things, be imaginative and be willing to visit different locations at different times of the day or night.

Drone Photographers

Be proficient in post processing

Image editing can do wonders for aerial photographs. There are plenty of proponents of the perspective that expert photographers should get their image perfectly captured in the camera but that is not an easy task while capturing images from a drone. You can employ Lightroom and Photoshop owing to their flexibility and easy availability. You can crop and straighten images in addition to manipulating the exposure, color balance and sharpness of the images. Advanced post-processing software let you get rid of chromatic aberrations and digital noise in an effective manner.

Be creative

Drone photography lets you capture the world from an entirely different perspective. Do not hesitate to join social networks and communities of professional drone photographers and seek inspiration from seasoned experts. An aerial view can be captured the best in panoramic montages. You can also use tilt-shift effects and several other innovative techniques to get what you are looking for.

Conclusion

Drone photographers are blessed with great opportunities currently. You can use drones to capture landscapes as well as portraits, events, and action sports.